Investigating the Effective Parameters on the Banana Slices Shrinkage during Drying Using Response Surface Technique

This study was investigated the effective parameters on the banana slices shrinkage during drying، using the response surface technique. In this study، the banana slices were dried using a thin-layer dryer made based on a computer vision system. Therefore، the shrinkage of the slices was determined using an image processing technique in the MATLAB environment. The response surface technique، central composite diagram (CCD) with four parameters، was used to investigate the effect of drying time، drying temperature، slice thickness and air velocity during the drying process (as the process parameters) on the shrinkage (as the process response). The second-order model was selected to describe the shrinkage as a function of the independent parameters (time، temperature، slice thickness and air velocity) due to RMSE=0. 033 and R2=0. 951. The results showed that the drying time، drying temperature، slice thickness and air velocity had the most effect on the banana slices shrinkage، respectively.